Just wanted to know what you think.

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I know this is really short, but think of it as a small preview type thing. Please. :P
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The stale air of the room was as still as its owner. The smells of sweat, old cigarette smoke, pizza and grease floated lifelessly in the oppressive, abused atmosphere of the room. A fly clung silently to one of the walls, all a sickly yellow colour, not yet flying.

The man sat in the one chair facing the one cheap desk in a dark corner of the room. The desk was an oasis of emptiness in the unkempt room, which was strewn with clothes, magazines and rubbish. However, the desk’s usual squatters: empty pizza boxes, mugs of old abandoned coffee, papers, files and an ashtray full of long dead cigarettes, lay scattered around the desk, discarded with contempt. A lamp had been knocked off the desk as well; losing its shade, the bulb flickered and died next to one of the mugs as the cold coffee inevitably flowed out, staining the carpet as it moved mindlessly out and towards the centre of the room, black towards red.

The man’s blue eyes stared from his unremarkable face impassively into the wall and beyond, drilling right through. He sat bolt upright, this and the slow rising of his chest were the only clues he was alive. His pale hands were on the desk, fingers splayed, each hand equal distances each side of the centre of the desk.

Piercing through the silence of the room came the inane buzzing of the fly, finally deciding to begin flying. The man breathed in more firmly and blinked once. The fly dropped to the carpet and scuttled silently away to the dark recess of another corner, far away from the desk. Even insects know when something is wrong.

After another minute of sitting like this finally he rose, pushing the chair back slightly and walked straight out of the room purposely, leaving one faint bloody handprint on the desk.

He did not look back into the room; back to the fat, ugly corpse face down in the centre, clad in only dirty boxers and a shirt amidst the chaos of the room, random red stab wounds all over his back and blood pumping obscenely from a vicious tear in his neck, staining the carpet and taking a hold on the room. He did not look back.




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Hi. Skimming this, it sounds a lot like the sort of thing I like to write - a scene as opposed to a play, if you see what I mean. But you have an intention of continuing with it, which is usually better than leaving a random fragment of prose. :P

I usually start with nitpicks, and sum up at the end.

A fly clung silently to one of the walls, all a sickly yellow colour, not yet flying.


You don't distinguish clearly enough here between the walls and the fly. Okay, so I understand what you're saying, but it's on common sense rather than your wording. It's partly to do with you mentioning "one of the walls" and then going on to "all", which confuses the reader a little bit, and also because you try to describe the walls and then revert to the fly so quickly. Mess around with this sentence a little bit and see if you can get it to make a bit more sense.
And why "not yet flying", as if it's some sort of ultimate goal of the fly itself?

The man sat in the one chair facing the one cheap desk in a dark corner of the room. The desk was an oasis of emptiness in the unkempt room, which was strewn with clothes, magazines and rubbish. However, the desk’s usual squatters: empty pizza boxes, mugs of old abandoned coffee, papers, files and an ashtray full of long dead cigarettes, lay scattered around the desk, discarded with contempt.


You've repeated "room" a couple of times, which doesn't read very well. Also, I see that you're listing a lot. This is a technique, I see that, but if you could find another way of describing the "squatters" (I love that) on the desk, it might be better so you don't have to repeatedly list. Unless that was your intention.
The repetition of "the desk", "the room" and the mention of "the man" doesn't go well with me. It might just be me, so a second opinion would be helpful, but you seem to have an aversion to 'it'. That might have something to do with the amount of nouns you've got running around with all that listing, though; I think it'd be quite hard to distinguish 'it' after a list.

flowed out, staining the carpet as it moved mindlessly out


Repetition of 'out' here that stilts the flow. You could probably cut the second out completely, in context with the rest of the sentence.

He sat bolt upright, this and the slow rising of his chest were the only clues he was alive.


Colon before 'this', I think.

Piercing through the silence of the room came the inane buzzing of the fly, finally deciding to begin flying.


You don't need 'through' after 'piercing', but if you can avoid 'piercing the silence' at all, it might be best to, since it is a little bit overused. Also, you've repeated 'fly' here, which doesn't flow very well to the reader. I'd rephrase it, maybe something like this:

came the inane buzzing of the fly, finally airborne.

It's just a suggestion, and changes the flow altogether, so it's up to you whether you use it.

walked straight out of the room purposely


The implication is, when you walk 'straight out' of a room, that it is with purpose, so I don't think you need the purposely here.

random red stab wounds all over his back and blood pumping obscenely from a vicious tear in his neck, staining the carpet and taking a hold on the room.


No 'random'! I know it's actually in context here, but it's so overused as a word informally today that I'm not sure you can get away with it in a piece as serious as this. There are synonyms, but I would just cut it.

I like the repeat at the end, by the way. That doesn't usually work, but it did here, since you only repeated part of the sentence.

So, my advice would be to read this aloud. Even to yourself, just to see how it sounds, because most of the issues I had were just with odd words that can easily be rearranged or cut or replaced. Do that, and it'll all come together quite well. I liked the description, although, as I said, I'm not sure the listing worked too well. I don't know what you're going to do with this, but you'll have to try not to throw us too much with a completely different style. I like the one you have here. Good luck with it.




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Hi, Baboon!
Thank you for reviewing my story! I'm glad you liked it, so I thought I'd return the favor.
I had to read this a couple times to get what you were saying, now I get that the guy killed the other guy, although I do not know why. LOL :lol: Sorry. Really, it was good, It was very well detailed and it creates a strong picture in the reader's mind. As in I can picture what you're trying to say really well.
I'd like to see more of this, see where this goes. It's not overly creative but still has some originality to it. Good job.
Wish you luck.
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[quote=]I know this is really short, but think of it as a small preview type thing. Please. :P
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The stale air of the room was as still as its owner. Air has an owner? LOL I wanna buy some air The smells of sweat, old cigarette smoke, pizza and grease floated lifelessly in the oppressive, abused atmosphere of the room. I had to re-read this a couple of times for it to make sense. It just sounds really weird. Maybe you should try rephrasing it. A fly clung silently to one of the walls, all a sickly yellow colour Yellow is sticky? How can a colour be sticky?, not yet flying. Okay, you've said that the fly is one the wall, why would be it flying? I think you can scratch that last bit

The man sat in the one chair facing the one cheap desk in a dark corner of the room. Really weird. I would have wrote "A man sat in a broken chair facing a cheap desk in the darkest corner of the lifeless room." Or something to that effect. It's your story. The desk was an oasis of emptiness in the unkempt room, which was strewn with clothes, magazines and rubbish. However, the desk’s usual squatters: Squatters? Might just be my incapability to read here, but I would put "However, th desk's usual occupants" instead. empty pizza boxes, mugs of old abandoned coffee, papers, files and an ashtray full of long dead cigarettes, lay scattered around the desk, discarded with contempt. A lamp had been knocked off the desk as well; losing its shade, the bulb flickered and died next to one of the mugs as the cold coffee inevitably flowed out, staining the carpet as it moved mindlessly out and towards the centre of the room, black towards red. Huge run-on sentence right here. You need to break it up into a couple of sentences. And black towards red? I don't understand that.

The man’s blue eyes stared from his unremarkable face Why is his face remarkable? impassively into the wall and beyond, drilling right through. What? How can he see beyond a wall? LOL How can someone's eyes drill though a wall? He sat bolt upright, this and the slow rising of his chest were the only clues he was alive. His pale hands were on the desk, fingers splayed, each hand equal distances each side of the centre of the desk. I really don't understand this. Are you trying to say that his hands were equal distances apart from the center of the desk? If you are, please rephrase this sentence.

Piercing through the silence of the room came the inane I think you mean insane buzzing of the fly, finally deciding to begin flying. How can a sound pierce though something? Consider rephrasing this as well. The man breathed in more firmly and blinked once. The fly dropped to the carpet and scuttled silently away to the dark recess of another corner, far away from the desk. Even insects know when something is wrong. Oh! I like this! Makes it sound really, really creepy.

After another minute of sitting like this I would take out like this finally he rose, pushing the chair back slightly and walked straight out of the room purposely, leaving one faint bloody handprint hand print isn't a compound word on the desk.

He did not look back into the room; back to the fat, ugly corpse face down in the centre, clad in only dirty boxers and a shirt amidst the chaos of the room, random red stab wounds all over his back and blood pumping obscenely from a vicious tear in his neck, staining the carpet and taking a hold on the room. Another huge, run-on sentence. Break it up. If this person is dead, then blood wouldn't pump from his neck since the heart isn't pumping any blood. And the blood is taking a hold of the room? Try something slightly different. It sounds weird. He did not look back. [/quote]

Overall: I think that it was okay. I, personally, like writing with more action and a faster pace, so I'm probably not the best editor :? I find that you have a lot of detail, which is sometimes nice, but I want to know more about what's going on in the story, not how everything looks. You did succeed in giving me a creepy and dark feeling though, if that is what you were trying to do. Good luck and keep writing! :D PM me if you have any questions about anything I said or etc.




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Yaaaay first reviews lol :P
Thanks a lot for the time you spent reviewing and
I see what you're all saying...mostly hahah
But seriously thanks. Hmm I don't really have any
any ideas where to go with this, definitely a scene
Rather than a play methinks :P

Baboon




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Hey! First of all, welcome to YWS! I notice you only joined yesterday, so congrats on having done two reviews already! God knows I haven't done enough recently lol :D

Second of all, this is definitely an interesting idea. I get these aaaall the time, like when I'm watching the news or an advert or reading the newspaper and something in the way a sentence is phrased catches my attention, and a plotline - normally a brief one that can go absolutely nowhere - pops into my head. This, however, seems like a much more robust sort of idea, and you could probably expand it in some way, if you really wanted. It could be the story of an assassin, in some random situation. Or not, whatever you feel like.

A few pointers I would like to give you:

A fly clung silently to one of the walls, all a sickly yellow colour, not yet flying.

I notice someone else has mentioned this, but I wanted to as well. You should put something like this: "A fly clung silently to one of the walls - all of which were covered in a peeling, sickly yellow paint - its wings tucked into its body, not yet flying." It just gives more detail, and adds to the atmosphere of your wonderfully described room (well done in the first paragraph on that, by the way. Great adjectives).

However, the desk’s usual squatters: empty pizza boxes, mugs of old abandoned coffee, papers, files and an ashtray full of long dead cigarettes, lay scattered around the desk, discarded with contempt.

You might notice that I love the good ol' dash, but it's a really useful tool, especially in this sentence where it would make it run so much more smoothly. "However, the desk's usual squatters - empty pizza boxes, mugs of old abandoned coffee with congealed skins, papers, files and an ashtray full of long-since dead cigarettes - lay scattered around the surface of the desk, discarded with casual contempt." Or something.

The man’s blue eyes stared from his unremarkable face impassively into the wall and beyond, drilling right through.

I like this sentence very muchly! I just think it would be easier to understand like this: "The man's blue eyes stared impassively from his unremarkable face into the wall and beyond, drilling right through." Just play around with the order of the little phrases in the sentence until you find the way it fits just right for you - that's what I do. (And I have to quite a lot, because I tend to ramble and get extreeemely long sentences!)

Anyhoo, great idea! Keep 'em up! ~*cottonrulz*~
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The stale air of the room was as still as its owner. (There were two people in the room so at the ending at least specify who owned the room) The smells of sweat, old cigarette smoke, pizza and grease floated lifelessly in (you can replace those words with 'permeated') the oppressive, abused atmosphere of the room. A fly clung silently to one of the walls, all a sickly yellow colour, not yet flying. (A small fly clung onto one of the yellow walls.)

The man sat in the one (remove) chair facing the one cheap desk that was in a dark corner of the room. The desk was an oasis of emptiness in the unkempt room, which was strewn with clothes, magazines and rubbish. However, (That can be discarded) The desk’s usual squatters: empty pizza boxes, mugs of old abandoned coffee, papers, files and an ashtray full of long dead cigarettes, lay scattered around the desk, discarded with contempt. A lamp had been knocked off the desk as well; losing its shade, the bulb flickered and died next to one of the mugs as the cold coffee inevitably flowed out, staining the carpet as it moved mindlessly out and towards the centre of the room, black towards red.

The rest of the room was strewn with clothes, magazines and rubbish.

The man’s blue eyes stared from his unremarkable face impassively into the wall (the man stared impassively at the wall) and beyond, drilling right through (you can leave out the last part). He sat bolt upright, this and the slow rising of his chest were the only clues he was alive. His pale hands were on the desk, fingers splayed, each hand equal distances each side of the centre of the desk.

Piercing through the silence of the room came the inane buzzing of the fly, finally deciding to begin flying. The man breathed in more firmly and blinked once. The fly dropped to the carpet and scuttled silently away to the dark recess of another corner, far away from the desk. Even insects know when something is wrong.

After another minute of sitting like this finally he rose, pushing the chair back slightly and walked straight out of the room purposely, leaving one faint bloody handprint on the desk.

He did not look back into the room; back to the fat, ugly corpse face down in the centre, clad in only dirty boxers and a shirt amidst the chaos of the room, random red stab wounds all over his back and blood pumping obscenely from a vicious tear in his neck, staining the carpet and taking a hold on the room. He did not look back.[/quote]




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Thanks again for the helpful advice. Hmmm cotonrulz you have given me an idea...lol
Ill redo this and post it again sometime soon, hope you all re-review hahah




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This was really good. I really liked how you kept referring back to the insect to help narrate the story, rather than just describing the scene. It made me see the scene from a fly's point of view at times, and just altogether strengthened the story. I thought you did a great job with description as well. Do you have any further plans for this?
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I liked the description of the room. I also like, along with zoorah12 how you wrote the fly in with the story. I think the pizza, the mugs, and the fly all add to the five senses and that's what i like in stories. Great job and keep writing!
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The desk was an oasis of emptiness in the unkempt room, which was strewn with clothes, magazines and rubbish. However, the desk’s usual squatters: empty pizza boxes, mugs of old abandoned coffee, papers, files and an ashtray full of long dead cigarettes, lay scattered around the desk, discarded with contempt. A lamp had been knocked off the desk as well;

His pale hands were on the desk, fingers splayed, each hand equal distances each side of the centre of the desk.

The fly dropped to the carpet and scuttled silently away to the dark recess of another corner, far away from the desk.

leaving one faint bloody handprint on the desk.

I know it's hard to talk about something without mention it's name, but "the desk" began to nag me awfully.

Even insects know when something is wrong.

I loved this!

He did not look back.

Perfect use of a sentence, and it deserves to be said again.

It was very interesting, and I would love to read more!
"SHAMAN" is a action/adventure fiction novel I'm writing, following the adventures of Marcus Lee. Marcus finds a book with a peculiar symbol engraved on the cover. As Marcus digs deeper into the mysteries of the book, he learns about controlled reincarnation.




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I'm pretty sure everyone else picked up the nitpicks, so I'll just say what I thought as I was reading.
One teeny, tiny piece of foreshadowing would be nice. I think that's what your getting at when you say "black towards red" but we just assume there is red carpeting and move on.
Describe the mans face. Or his hair, or something about him. The room is screaming with atmosphere and personality but we don't know anything about the... main character.
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